Kokand or Khokand (both: kəkäntˈ) [key], city (1991 pop. 182,000), E Uzbekistan, in the Fergana Valley. It is a center for the manufacture of fertilizers, chemicals, machinery, and cotton and food products. Important since the 10th cent., Kokand became the capital of an Uzbek khanate which became independent of the emirate of Bukhara in the middle of the 18th cent. and flowered in the 1820s and 30s. Kokand was taken by the Russians in 1876 and became part of Russian Turkistan. It was the capital (1917–18) of the anti-Bolshevik autonomous government of Turkistan. It has a ruined palace of the last Khan, working mosques, and royal mausoleums.
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